The following abbreviations and terms are herewith defined, at least some of which are referred to within the following description of the present disclosure.
3GPP 3rd-Generation Partnership Project
AGCH Access Grant Channel
AS Access Stratum
ASIC Application Specific Integrated Circuit
BLER Block Error Rate
BSS Base Station Subsystem
BSSGP Base Station Subsystem GPRS Protocol
CC Coverage Class
CIoT Cellular Internet of Things
CN Core Network
CR Change Request
DRB Data Radio Bearer
DL Downlink
EC Extended Coverage
EC-GSM Extended Coverage Global System for Mobile Communications
EC-RACH Extended Coverage-Random Access Channel
eNB Evolved Node B
DL Downlink
DSP Digital Signal Processor
ECM EPS Connection Management
EDGE Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution
EGPRS Enhanced General Packet Radio Service
EPS Evolved Packet System
E-UTRA Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access
GSM Global System for Mobile Communications
GERAN GSM/EDGE Radio Access Network
GGSN Gateway GPRS Support Node
GPRS General Packet Radio Service
GTP GPRS Tunnelling Protocol
GTP-C GTP Control Plane
GTP-U GTP User Plane
HARQ Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request
HLR Home Location Register
IE Information Element
IoT Internet of Things
K_eNB eNB security key
LLC Logical Link Control
LTE Long-Term Evolution
MAC Media Access Control
MCS Modulation and Coding Scheme
MME Mobility Management Entity
MS Mobile Station
MTC Machine Type Communications
NAS Non Access Stratum
NB Node B
NB-IOT Narrowband Internet of Things
NB-LTE Narrowband Long-Term Evolution
NCC Next Hop Chaining Counter
PCC Policy and Charging Control
PCRF Policy and Charging Rules Function
PDN Packet Data Network
PDU Protocol Data Unit
P-GW Packet Data Network GateWay
QoS Quality of Service
RACH Random Access Channel
RAN Radio Access Network
RAT Radio Access Technology
RoHC Robust Header Compression
RRC Radio Resource Control
S1AP S1 Application Protocol
SAPI Service Access Point Identifier
SGSN Serving GPRS Support Node
S-GW Serving GateWay
SMS Short Message Service
TDMA Time Division Multiple Access
TEID Tunnel Endpoint Identifier
TR Technical Report
TS Technical Specification
TSG Technical Specification Group
UE User Equipment
UL Uplink
WCDMA Wideband Code Division Multiple Access
WiMAX Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access
Extended Coverage: The general principle of extended coverage is that of using blind transmissions for the control channels and for the data channels to realize a target block error rate performance (BLER) for the channel of interest. In addition, for the data channels the use of blind transmissions assuming MCS-1 (i.e., the lowest modulation and coding scheme (MCS) supported in EGPRS today) is combined with HARQ retransmissions to realize the needed level of data transmission performance. Support for extended coverage is realized by defining different coverage classes. A different number of blind transmissions are associated with each of the coverage classes wherein extended coverage is associated with coverage classes for which multiple blind transmissions are needed (i.e., a single blind transmission is considered as the reference coverage). The number of total blind transmissions for a given coverage class can differ between different logical channels.Internet of Things (IoT) devices: The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of physical objects or “things” embedded with electronics, software, sensors, and connectivity to enable objects to exchange data with the manufacturer, operator and/or other connected devices based on the infrastructure of the International Telecommunication Union's Global Standards Initiative. The Internet of Things allows objects to be sensed and controlled remotely across existing network infrastructure creating opportunities for more direct integration between the physical world and computer-based systems, and resulting in improved efficiency, accuracy and economic benefit. Each thing is uniquely identifiable through its embedded computing system but is able to interoperate within the existing Internet infrastructure. Experts estimate that the IoT will consist of almost 50 billion objects by 2020.Cellular Internet of Things (CIoT) devices: CIoT devices are IoT devices that establish connectivity using cellular networks.Machine Type Communication (MTC) devices: A MTC device is a type of device where support for human interaction with the device is typically not required and data transmissions from or to the device are expected to be rather short (e.g., a maximum of a few hundred octets). MTC devices supporting a minimum functionality can be expected to only operate using normal cell contours and as such do not support the concept of extended coverage whereas MTC devices with enhanced capabilities may support extended coverage.
At the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Technical Specification Group (TSG) GSM/EDGE Radio Access Network (GERAN) meeting #67, a new work item entitled “New Work Item on Extended Coverage GSM (EC-GSM) for support of Cellular Internet of Things” (CIoT) was discussed and approved in GP-151039 (dated: Aug. 10-14, 2015) with the intention to improve coverage with 20 dB, to improve battery life time and to decrease device complexity. The contents of GP-151039 are hereby incorporated by reference herein for all purposes. The work is based on the Extended Coverage Global System for Mobile (EC-GSM) solution as captured in Chapter 6.2 in the 3GPP Technical Report (TR) 45.820 v13.1.0 (2015-11) entitled “Technical Specification Group GSM/EDGE Radio Access Network; Cellular system support for ultra-low complexity and low throughput Internet of Things (CIoT) (Release 13)” (referred to herein as the “Cellular IoT study report”), the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference herein for all purposes.
At the 3GPP TSG GERAN meeting #69, there was discussed a new work item RP-151621 (dated: Sep. 14-16, 2015) entitled “New Work Item: NarrowBand IOT (NB-IOT),” with the objective to specify a radio access for CIoT, based to a great extent on a non-backward-compatible variant of Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA), that addresses improved indoor coverage, support for massive number of low throughput devices, low delay sensitivity, ultra-low device cost, low device power consumption and (optimized) network architecture. The contents of RP-151621 are hereby incorporated by reference herein for all purposes. The basis for this work item is the solution Narrow Band Long Term Evolution (NB-LTE) captured in the Cellular IoT study report.
Within the Cellular IoT study report, there was a 10 second latency requirement related to exception reporting, which in turn resulted in supporting a unique code point in the Channel Request Message or in general when the device or user equipment (UE) accesses the network allowing the Base Station System (BSS)/RAN to prioritize exception reports when it comes to resource utilization.
The use of exception reports is controlled (e.g., triggered) by an application running on the IoT device/UE. One typical use case for IoT devices is metering, such as particular water metering. Such a device will regularly send non-prioritized metering reports to a server using low priority packet transfers, and only when there is an exception (e.g., a water leakage) will the device send an exception report by requesting a high priority packet transfer. Similarly, a fire alarm type device may regularly send keep-alive messages in non-prioritized reports to a server and only send an exception report when there is a fire alarm.
A problem with the existing solution is that, from a radio interface perspective, there is no way to ensure responsible use of exception reports, as they are entirely controlled by the application. In other words, there is a risk that the application uses the code point associated with exception reporting (high priority), as discussed in GP-151111 (dated: Nov. 16-20, 2015) (the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference herein for all purposes) Change Request (CR) 44.018-1027 Introduction of EC-EGPRS and Power Efficient Operation (Rel-13), also for normal reporting with the purpose to secure prioritization of traffic associated with a particular device and/or application.
As the network resources on the radio interface is a scarce resource, the abuse of the code point associated with exception reporting may ultimately lead to delayed network service for all types of traffic, i.e., for traffic related to normal and prioritized (exception) reporting.